Mini Metro – Review

Good: You can really let your creativity go wild on designing a nice metro system

Bad: It can get boring after some time as it's the same every time

User Score

10.0

(3 votes)

Click to vote

VN:F [1.9.22_1171]

please wait...

Rating: 10.0/10 (3 votes cast)

Ever wanted to design your own metro system like those you see in some of the big cities around the world? Well, now you have the chance in the new game for the Nintendo Switch, Mini Metro. This game lets you build and design your own metro system from the ground up. Tunnel your way through rivers to reach those pesky stations behind rivers but watch out because you have a limited amount of tunnels available.

Story

In Mini Metro, there’s no story present in the game. The game revolves around building the best running metro system, so all the passengers can get to their destinations without waiting for a long time.

Graphics

There’s not much to say about the graphics of Mini Metro. If you connect a station with another, a colored line will appear between the two. A block will represent a train moving between the stations on one metro line. The different metro lines are distinguished by their own color so you know at which stations a train will stop.

Sound

For Mini Metro, they didn’t add a lot of sound to the game apart from some clicks and bleeps when placing metro lines and an annoying buzzing sound that plays all the time when you are playing. No effort was spent to add some cheerful music to make the game a little more interesting.

Gameplay

Mini Metro is a strategy puzzle game. Mini Metro gives you the possibility to create and design your own metro station. You’ll start with three stations. From hereon out, your station will expand as the time passes. New stations will spawn after some time and you’ll need to extend your metro lines to get passengers to their next destination.

The controls can be a little hard master but at the start of each game, the game will explain the controls. If you click on an empty metro line, a new metro line with a different color will be created when that’s still available. If you want to extend a metro line, you’ll need to click on the end behind the last station or it’ll also start to create a new metro line. After you’ve finished the end of the metro line at a time, you’ll need to click the last station again to mark it as the end of that line. If you want to take your time designing your metro system or even redesigning all the lines without losing, you can pause the game at any time. This makes the game a lot easier because new passengers will spawn more and faster while playing in normal speed.

You’ll need to watch out extending your metro lines because a train will go through the full length of that line before it will turn around to get to the previous stations where new passengers will spawn. After some days have passed, you’ll get extra trains to add to your existing metro lines. It’s recommended to put these trains at the first station of a line when the already existing train is at the far end of this line.

On the map of the area, you’ll see rivers or lakes. These can be traversed by using tunnels. You’ll have a limited amount of tunnels when you start the game. As the weeks go by, new tunnels will get available for you to traverse these water obstacles. If you’ve used up all your tunnels and a new station spawns behind another river, you’ll need to come up with a solution to reach that station. This could require you to demolish some of your existing metro lines and redesign them to successfully reach the newly spawned station.

If you fail to keep the waiting times at your metro stations low, the game will end. You’ll then get the choice to continue in an endless mode where waiting passengers don’t matter, continue in a creative mode to create the best looking metro station or start over.

The game will gradually increase the challenge as the weeks pass by. More stations will appear and more passengers will start to arrive at stations to take a metro to their desired location. You’ll need to keep your metro lines as efficient as possible. The game will end when more than six passengers are waiting at one station.

You can choose in which city you’d like to set up your metro station. The first cities available are London, Paris and New York City. After playing at several cities you’ll unlock new cities like Berlin, Hong Kong and several others.

Each day has a daily challenge. On each day, everyone will play in the same city. There’s also a global leaderboard for each day. The first time you finish the daily challenge city, your score will get on this leaderboard. So make sure that the first time’s right, because you’ll only get one chance to participate in the global rankings each day.

Conclusion

Mini Metro is game specifically created for puzzle game enthusiasts. It offers a lot of challenge if you’d like to get as many passengers to their destination as possible. When a lot of stations have appeared, you can really experiment with different setups for metro lines. It can be encouraging to build your metro system as creative and efficient as possible. If you like puzzle games and you’re up for the challenge to build the best metro station possible, then this game can be a fun way to show off your creativity.